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The thin pc board inside the USB-C connector is prone to breaking. Angled insertion/removal also leverages the pins soldered to the mainboard and can eventually

The thin pc board inside the USB-C connector is prone to breaking. Angled insertion/removal also leverages the pins soldered to the mainboard and can eventually break them loose. The Lightning connector was superior in many ways. I have no idea why everyone is celebrating this downgrade. Now no one is ever able to improve on the connector reliability because the EU has frozen the design forever by enshrining it into law?

Goronmon 3y ago
The Lightning connector was superior in many ways. I have no idea why everyone is celebrating this downgrade. You say it's a downgrade, but the only issues I've had with cables in this context are lightning connectors where the cable connector broke off into the device and required a good amount of work to get all the pieces out. And that's with only a single device using a lightning cable and many other devices that are USB-C.
- buildbot 3y ago
  Honest to whatever - How?! Those connectors seem like solid metal, seems like it would take ludicrous force to break it like that. So would a cable side USB-C connector - but in agreement with the grandparent comment that tab in the center port is pretty flimsy… and the ports themselves seem pretty wear happy, similar to how micro usb tended to break the port first after repeated insertion vs. a more easily replaceable cable.
  - Goronmon 3y ago
    Those connectors seem like solid metal, seems like it would take ludicrous force to break it like that. Not that much force. Just a two year old who grabs something before you can stop them unfortunately.
    - buildbot 3y ago
      I posit in this case USB-C would also fail :) Or alternatively, that 2 year old sticks something in that port and breaks that little tab.
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  In any case, this wouldn't be solved by USB-C. In fact, it'd be even worse, because instead of one chunky piece of metal with some bits inside, you'll have a mess of tiny plastic and long, unprotected connector pins, both in the device and on the cable connector. Also: Apple does not attach the lightning port to the mainboard of an iPhone, and thus it is easily replaced unlike damn near every Android phone where the connector is soldered onto the mainboard, purposefully, along with extremely fine pitch SMD components very close to the connector, to make it difficult to impossible to repair (the tiny SMD components will blow off the board if you use a hot air rework gun.)
wlesieutre 3y ago
99% of my phone charging happens on a Qi pad, this saves me from needing to carry a special cable around just in case I need to charge my phone with it once a year.
- 650REDHAIR 3y ago
  99.9% of my charging is via lightning connector. I don’t even own a Qi pad.
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    They're great, you should try it. My phone was having trouble with CarPlay recently because the port had gotten clogged with lint, I was able to fix it by very carefully cleaning out the port but I'm switching to wireless CarPlay and MagSafe charging to not have to worry about it. That's the one place I still had to use a lightning cable regularly, and a $40 wireless adapter takes care of it.
    - Overtonwindow 3y ago
      Wireless charging is the way to go. When the charging port on my iPhone 12 started to go I switched to wireless. The constant plugging and unplugging, etc. put too much strain on that jack.
- vachina 3y ago
  Wireless charging warms the phone so much more than cable charging it hastens battery ageing.
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    I use my phone so little that this is not really a concern, but if you're the kind of person who regularly drains your phone battery then I guess it could matter. My battery health is reported at 81%, though I've seen some speculation that iOS 17 betas changed how this is calculated because people see lower numbers than they did before. Regardless, looking at previous 10 days history my peak battery use was about 60% last Sunday. Edit to add: phone is ~3 years old
captainmisery 3y ago
> I have no idea why everyone is celebrating this downgrade. Because now all the cables you use are the same (well in most cases is the thought). It's just convenient. I have never experienced a faulty or broken usb c, but that says nothing off course. Android user for years now so I have have had it for years.
- D13Fd 3y ago
  The legislation freezes development in time. It's unlikely that anything will be able to replace USB-C any time soon, because it is legislated in place. I'd rather see the tech continue to improve and let the marketplace decide what tech is superior.
  - gochi 3y ago
    Despite USB 2 being universal once upon a time, it didn't stop tech improvements at all.
    - roynasser 3y ago
      universal != legislated
      - gochi 3y ago
        USB C isn't legislated that strictly, it provides a sane baseline, exactly like USB 2 was. Easiest way for you to understand it is C is an official baseline, 2.0 was an unofficial baseline. You can still easily add your "technologically superior" port to your devices alongside the standard.
smoldesu 3y ago
A shame Apple missed their opportunity to standardize it as an alternative to USB-C.
km3r 3y ago
I've yet to have a USB C port fail for what it's worth. Apple had plenty of opportunities to be involved in the development of USB C (they are on the forum). They also could have opened up lightning as an option for USB C. Fighting against using common standards for so long has left them to the whims of others. Be part of the global tech stack instead of a dead end.
- hartator 3y ago
  USB is a private organization and you pay a fee per connector. USB lobbying won over the EU. Nothing to celebrate indeed.
  - dvngnt_ 3y ago
    I'm celebrating using one cord to charge headphones, mouse, laptop, android and iOS phones
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    Apple likes to shoot themselves in the foot by insisting on keeping things proprietary that don't need to be kept proprietary. This whole episode is one big unforced error on Apple's part.
    - stouset 3y ago
      This is your regular reminder that the USB-C port design was published two years after devices with a Lightning port started shipping.
      - CamperBob2 3y ago
        So? Lightning is patented. The design aspects that made it better are literally illegal for anyone else to use. Apple was greedy when it came to something that didn't matter, and they ended up losing out in the long run as a result. An old tale, oft told.
        3y ago
ilyt 3y ago
It really is not. Any connector which puts springy bits inside of the device and not the cable is automatically worse. The only reason lightning connectors don't break as often is because cable relief falls apart before it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
jjtheblunt 3y ago
does the law require existence of a cable connection, or just require that a pluggable connector be USB-C? I can imagine just removing the connectors entirely, for Qi charging, and thereby reducing one port and its consequences on RF noise -> RF desensifying for cellular.
- cyberge99 3y ago
  I think Apple has wanted a portless iphone for ages, but they haven’t been able to get past consumer demand.
buildbot 3y ago
100% agree with this - the lightning connector was actually a really nice design. In a perfect fantasy world, it would have been open sourced so others companies could use it, and been upgraded to higher speeds too.
selectodude 3y ago
Every USB-C port I've ever used has gotten mushy after 6 months or so. Lightning is just simply a better port, especially for mobile. So it goes.
gjsman-1000 3y ago
> Now no one is ever able to improve on the connector reliability because the EU has frozen the design forever by enshrining it into law? The EU has made it clear that if the manufacturers get together and come up with a replacement, technically superior standard, then it will be permitted. However, there isn't one on the horizon anytime soon because USB-C doesn't really have any weaknesses requiring a new connector right now. > The Lightning connector was superior in many ways. I have no idea why everyone is celebrating this downgrade. Faster speeds, but primarily consistency with other devices. I can certify that when you travel with a MacBook, Nintendo Switch, iPad, Portable Soundbar, Battery Pack, and they all use USB-C... the iPhone that uses Lightning gets pretty annoying very quickly. To be honest, part of me wondered if Apple could have gotten away (even though it would have caused shock) with 2 connectors on the iPhone. Lightning on the bottom where it had always been, USB-C on the left side with the volume switches and SIM card tray, just for the EU market. Would've been compliant but the EU would've been furious.
- swamp40 3y ago
  > if the manufacturers get together and come up with a replacement, technically superior standard, then it will be permitted You can see how that is next to impossible, though. You need to test in millions of phones over several years to verify that something is good. Which means it has to get into production. But that isn't allowed. A Catch-22 situation.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    "Verifying something is good" in that sense isn't required. If there's some other connector that looks compelling for charging and data, phone makers can get together and adopt it, too. We don't need phone-specific experience or to have done an A/B test with tons of statistical power. USB-C ain't perfect. But it's pretty tough to beat. There's also room for incremental improvements in reliability and functionality within the standard, too. At some point, just living with something as the standard is the way to go-- rather than hoping something new will be worth forklifting all the infrastructure and/or splitting the market.
SigmundA 3y ago
I am interested to know how it deals with lint. Lightning on all my iPhones eventually gets packed with lint from being in my pocket eventually with enough to prevent the connector from going in enough to make a good contact, usually it will stop consistently charging or connecting to carplay and I think something wrong with cable until I remember to clean it out with a paperclip or something. Always thought they should have done a small spring loaded door that the connector pushes out of the way when inserted. USB-C has even smaller space to stick something in to clean out lint since the pins are in the middle, also looks more delicate so would be worried to do that anyway, and a cover door looks out of the question too due to the pins in middle board.
ewoodrich 3y ago
The failure mode for every plugged in USB-C cable I have owned has been the connector bending on the cable with no damage at all to the port on the device. Cable needs to be replaced but I have had zero USB C port failures at this point having owned around 15 USB-C devices in the last 5-6 years (several of which are Apple devices btw, which is why I'm happy about dropping the last of Lightning).
amluto 3y ago
Not really. In any connector of this sort, there are two pieces: the plug on the cable and the receptacle on the phone. Lightning has a very visually appealing and physically durable plug, and that’s the part that you see. But this hides several aspects of the connector that make a poor functionality tradeoff. On a USB micro B or USB-C cable, the plug is retained in the socket by little spring-loaded clips on the plug. On micro, they’re on the outside and very obvious, and they stop working well if the plug gets a bit bent. On USB-C, they’re in the concealed portion of the plug. In both cases, they are components that can wear out, and, when they do, you replace the cable and you’re in good shape. These spring-loaded clips mate with fixed notches in the receptacle, and those notches are much longer lasting. Lightning does this the other way around. The plug has notches, and the springs are concealed in the socket. If the springs wear out, replacing the cable doesn’t help. Similarly, the electrical contacts are springy in the socket. They are very easy to damage with careless cleaning, and they have a tendency to accumulate lint, so they are likely to need cleaning. Lightning has an additional defect involving arcing. If you look at a charging cable that’s been use for a while, you’ll see that one electrical pad on each side of the plug will be burnt. Presumably this is where the connection arcs every time it’s unplugged. I’m not sure how USB mitigates this, but it seems to be less of a problem. Maybe the contacts are simply thicker and more durable. Sure, USB-C receptacles have a thin tongue, and it’s a weak point, but it’s much stronger than the 10 fragile moving parts inside a lightning receptacle.
Eric_WVGG 3y ago
I was on the same page as you, but a fairly knowledgable podcaster made the case that the weak link in these connectors was the flexy contacts, which are in the device on lightning devices and in the cable on USB-C. I'm currently unsure which to believe, but I also kind of don't care anymore. There was never a future where Lightning was opened to the rest of the industry, and Apple never bumped it beyond USB 2.0 speeds, so I'm ready to just get on with it. Except that Apple doesn't appear to be ready to make anymore iPhone Minis, so I'll be stuck with lighting for the next five years… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
frizlab 3y ago
Thank you! I’m bewildered and quite frankly truly annoyed by this celebration of an obvious downgrade, forced by a law made by people who (mostly) do not understand the tech world. Yes, you now have the same port as (all of) the concurrent phone when you have an iPhone. Youplidoo. You succeeded in giving us (iPhone users) something worse than what we had because there were too many of you. By force. Thanks for nothing.
happytoexplain 3y ago
Yup. I love standardization, and I don't even use iPhone - but the USB-C port is demonstrably awful. My failure rate with C ports across three or four devices has been even higher than Micro-B, which is insane. In the latest case, I was forced to switch to wireless charging after less than one year plugging my Pixel 7 in every night. The port is utterly useless now - if I'm ever in a situation where I don't have a wireless charger, I will simply be unable to charge my phone (yes, I've cleaned the port). Lightning is simply the most rock-solid and long-lasting port of its size ever designed.

Goronmon 3y ago

The Lightning connector was superior in many ways. I have no idea why everyone is celebrating this downgrade. You say it's a downgrade, but the only issues I've had with cables in this context are lightning connectors where the cable connector broke off into the device and required a good amount of work to get all the pieces out. And that's with only a single device using a lightning cable and many other devices that are USB-C.

buildbot 3y ago
Honest to whatever - How?! Those connectors seem like solid metal, seems like it would take ludicrous force to break it like that. So would a cable side USB-C connector - but in agreement with the grandparent comment that tab in the center port is pretty flimsy… and the ports themselves seem pretty wear happy, similar to how micro usb tended to break the port first after repeated insertion vs. a more easily replaceable cable.
- Goronmon 3y ago
  Those connectors seem like solid metal, seems like it would take ludicrous force to break it like that. Not that much force. Just a two year old who grabs something before you can stop them unfortunately.
  - buildbot 3y ago
    I posit in this case USB-C would also fail :) Or alternatively, that 2 year old sticks something in that port and breaks that little tab.
KennyBlanken 3y ago
In any case, this wouldn't be solved by USB-C. In fact, it'd be even worse, because instead of one chunky piece of metal with some bits inside, you'll have a mess of tiny plastic and long, unprotected connector pins, both in the device and on the cable connector. Also: Apple does not attach the lightning port to the mainboard of an iPhone, and thus it is easily replaced unlike damn near every Android phone where the connector is soldered onto the mainboard, purposefully, along with extremely fine pitch SMD components very close to the connector, to make it difficult to impossible to repair (the tiny SMD components will blow off the board if you use a hot air rework gun.)

wlesieutre 3y ago

99% of my phone charging happens on a Qi pad, this saves me from needing to carry a special cable around just in case I need to charge my phone with it once a year.

650REDHAIR 3y ago
99.9% of my charging is via lightning connector. I don’t even own a Qi pad.
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  They're great, you should try it. My phone was having trouble with CarPlay recently because the port had gotten clogged with lint, I was able to fix it by very carefully cleaning out the port but I'm switching to wireless CarPlay and MagSafe charging to not have to worry about it. That's the one place I still had to use a lightning cable regularly, and a $40 wireless adapter takes care of it.
  - Overtonwindow 3y ago
    Wireless charging is the way to go. When the charging port on my iPhone 12 started to go I switched to wireless. The constant plugging and unplugging, etc. put too much strain on that jack.
vachina 3y ago
Wireless charging warms the phone so much more than cable charging it hastens battery ageing.
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  I use my phone so little that this is not really a concern, but if you're the kind of person who regularly drains your phone battery then I guess it could matter. My battery health is reported at 81%, though I've seen some speculation that iOS 17 betas changed how this is calculated because people see lower numbers than they did before. Regardless, looking at previous 10 days history my peak battery use was about 60% last Sunday. Edit to add: phone is ~3 years old

captainmisery 3y ago

> I have no idea why everyone is celebrating this downgrade. Because now all the cables you use are the same (well in most cases is the thought). It's just convenient. I have never experienced a faulty or broken usb c, but that says nothing off course. Android user for years now so I have have had it for years.

D13Fd 3y ago
The legislation freezes development in time. It's unlikely that anything will be able to replace USB-C any time soon, because it is legislated in place. I'd rather see the tech continue to improve and let the marketplace decide what tech is superior.
- gochi 3y ago
  Despite USB 2 being universal once upon a time, it didn't stop tech improvements at all.
  - roynasser 3y ago
    universal != legislated
    - gochi 3y ago
      USB C isn't legislated that strictly, it provides a sane baseline, exactly like USB 2 was. Easiest way for you to understand it is C is an official baseline, 2.0 was an unofficial baseline. You can still easily add your "technologically superior" port to your devices alongside the standard.

smoldesu 3y ago

A shame Apple missed their opportunity to standardize it as an alternative to USB-C.

km3r 3y ago

I've yet to have a USB C port fail for what it's worth. Apple had plenty of opportunities to be involved in the development of USB C (they are on the forum). They also could have opened up lightning as an option for USB C. Fighting against using common standards for so long has left them to the whims of others. Be part of the global tech stack instead of a dead end.

hartator 3y ago
USB is a private organization and you pay a fee per connector. USB lobbying won over the EU. Nothing to celebrate indeed.
- dvngnt_ 3y ago
  I'm celebrating using one cord to charge headphones, mouse, laptop, android and iOS phones
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  Apple likes to shoot themselves in the foot by insisting on keeping things proprietary that don't need to be kept proprietary. This whole episode is one big unforced error on Apple's part.
  - stouset 3y ago
    This is your regular reminder that the USB-C port design was published two years after devices with a Lightning port started shipping.
    - CamperBob2 3y ago
      So? Lightning is patented. The design aspects that made it better are literally illegal for anyone else to use. Apple was greedy when it came to something that didn't matter, and they ended up losing out in the long run as a result. An old tale, oft told.
      - 3y ago

ilyt 3y ago

It really is not. Any connector which puts springy bits inside of the device and not the cable is automatically worse. The only reason lightning connectors don't break as often is because cable relief falls apart before it.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

jjtheblunt 3y ago

does the law require existence of a cable connection, or just require that a pluggable connector be USB-C? I can imagine just removing the connectors entirely, for Qi charging, and thereby reducing one port and its consequences on RF noise -> RF desensifying for cellular.

cyberge99 3y ago
I think Apple has wanted a portless iphone for ages, but they haven’t been able to get past consumer demand.

buildbot 3y ago

100% agree with this - the lightning connector was actually a really nice design. In a perfect fantasy world, it would have been open sourced so others companies could use it, and been upgraded to higher speeds too.

selectodude 3y ago

Every USB-C port I've ever used has gotten mushy after 6 months or so. Lightning is just simply a better port, especially for mobile. So it goes.

gjsman-1000 3y ago

> Now no one is ever able to improve on the connector reliability because the EU has frozen the design forever by enshrining it into law? The EU has made it clear that if the manufacturers get together and come up with a replacement, technically superior standard, then it will be permitted. However, there isn't one on the horizon anytime soon because USB-C doesn't really have any weaknesses requiring a new connector right now. > The Lightning connector was superior in many ways. I have no idea why everyone is celebrating this downgrade. Faster speeds, but primarily consistency with other devices. I can certify that when you travel with a MacBook, Nintendo Switch, iPad, Portable Soundbar, Battery Pack, and they all use USB-C... the iPhone that uses Lightning gets pretty annoying very quickly. To be honest, part of me wondered if Apple could have gotten away (even though it would have caused shock) with 2 connectors on the iPhone. Lightning on the bottom where it had always been, USB-C on the left side with the volume switches and SIM card tray, just for the EU market. Would've been compliant but the EU would've been furious.

swamp40 3y ago
> if the manufacturers get together and come up with a replacement, technically superior standard, then it will be permitted You can see how that is next to impossible, though. You need to test in millions of phones over several years to verify that something is good. Which means it has to get into production. But that isn't allowed. A Catch-22 situation.
- mlyle 3y ago
  "Verifying something is good" in that sense isn't required. If there's some other connector that looks compelling for charging and data, phone makers can get together and adopt it, too. We don't need phone-specific experience or to have done an A/B test with tons of statistical power. USB-C ain't perfect. But it's pretty tough to beat. There's also room for incremental improvements in reliability and functionality within the standard, too. At some point, just living with something as the standard is the way to go-- rather than hoping something new will be worth forklifting all the infrastructure and/or splitting the market.

SigmundA 3y ago

I am interested to know how it deals with lint. Lightning on all my iPhones eventually gets packed with lint from being in my pocket eventually with enough to prevent the connector from going in enough to make a good contact, usually it will stop consistently charging or connecting to carplay and I think something wrong with cable until I remember to clean it out with a paperclip or something. Always thought they should have done a small spring loaded door that the connector pushes out of the way when inserted. USB-C has even smaller space to stick something in to clean out lint since the pins are in the middle, also looks more delicate so would be worried to do that anyway, and a cover door looks out of the question too due to the pins in middle board.

ewoodrich 3y ago

The failure mode for every plugged in USB-C cable I have owned has been the connector bending on the cable with no damage at all to the port on the device. Cable needs to be replaced but I have had zero USB C port failures at this point having owned around 15 USB-C devices in the last 5-6 years (several of which are Apple devices btw, which is why I'm happy about dropping the last of Lightning).

amluto 3y ago

Not really. In any connector of this sort, there are two pieces: the plug on the cable and the receptacle on the phone. Lightning has a very visually appealing and physically durable plug, and that’s the part that you see. But this hides several aspects of the connector that make a poor functionality tradeoff. On a USB micro B or USB-C cable, the plug is retained in the socket by little spring-loaded clips on the plug. On micro, they’re on the outside and very obvious, and they stop working well if the plug gets a bit bent. On USB-C, they’re in the concealed portion of the plug. In both cases, they are components that can wear out, and, when they do, you replace the cable and you’re in good shape. These spring-loaded clips mate with fixed notches in the receptacle, and those notches are much longer lasting. Lightning does this the other way around. The plug has notches, and the springs are concealed in the socket. If the springs wear out, replacing the cable doesn’t help. Similarly, the electrical contacts are springy in the socket. They are very easy to damage with careless cleaning, and they have a tendency to accumulate lint, so they are likely to need cleaning. Lightning has an additional defect involving arcing. If you look at a charging cable that’s been use for a while, you’ll see that one electrical pad on each side of the plug will be burnt. Presumably this is where the connection arcs every time it’s unplugged. I’m not sure how USB mitigates this, but it seems to be less of a problem. Maybe the contacts are simply thicker and more durable. Sure, USB-C receptacles have a thin tongue, and it’s a weak point, but it’s much stronger than the 10 fragile moving parts inside a lightning receptacle.

Eric_WVGG 3y ago

I was on the same page as you, but a fairly knowledgable podcaster made the case that the weak link in these connectors was the flexy contacts, which are in the device on lightning devices and in the cable on USB-C. I'm currently unsure which to believe, but I also kind of don't care anymore. There was never a future where Lightning was opened to the rest of the industry, and Apple never bumped it beyond USB 2.0 speeds, so I'm ready to just get on with it. Except that Apple doesn't appear to be ready to make anymore iPhone Minis, so I'll be stuck with lighting for the next five years… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

frizlab 3y ago

Thank you! I’m bewildered and quite frankly truly annoyed by this celebration of an obvious downgrade, forced by a law made by people who (mostly) do not understand the tech world. Yes, you now have the same port as (all of) the concurrent phone when you have an iPhone. Youplidoo. You succeeded in giving us (iPhone users) something worse than what we had because there were too many of you. By force. Thanks for nothing.

happytoexplain 3y ago

Yup. I love standardization, and I don't even use iPhone - but the USB-C port is demonstrably awful. My failure rate with C ports across three or four devices has been even higher than Micro-B, which is insane. In the latest case, I was forced to switch to wireless charging after less than one year plugging my Pixel 7 in every night. The port is utterly useless now - if I'm ever in a situation where I don't have a wireless charger, I will simply be unable to charge my phone (yes, I've cleaned the port). Lightning is simply the most rock-solid and long-lasting port of its size ever designed.